Eric Polsky at Baseball Daily Digest has done some great work with DVORP, which is VORP from Baseball Prospectus with a capital D in front of it. That D stands for “dollar” — Dollar Value Over Replacement Player. His latest work with DVORP can be found by clicking here, it’s a great read laced with some funny movie quotes. I thought I’d put a Phillies spin on it for my audience here.

It’s actually really easy to calculate this stuff. First, you take your players and you put them into an Excel spreadsheet along with their VORP, which is easy enough. I just copy and pasted the data from here, removing the pitchers from the hitters table. Then you multiply their VORP by the Major League minimum salary, $400,000. In another column, you punch in the players’ salaries which can be found here. Finally, you subtract their salary from their DVORP to find their actual value.

Now we can take a look at how much value last year’s group of Phillies brought to the table. Let’s begin with the starting eight.

Player

Position

VORP

DVORP

Salary

Actual Value

Carlos Ruiz

C

15.6

$6,240,000

$ 475,000

$5,765,000

Ryan Howard

1B

47.7

$19,080,000

$ 15,000,000

$4,080,000

Chase Utley

2B

61.7

$24,680,000

$ 11,000,000

$13,680,000

Pedro Feliz

3B

3.5

$1,400,000

$ 5,000,000

-$3,600,000

Jimmy Rollins

SS

19.3

$7,720,000

$ 7,500,000

$220,000

Raul Ibanez

LF

38.4

$15,360,000

$ 6,500,000

$8,860,000

Shane Victorino

CF

37.7

$15,080,000

$ 3,125,000

$11,955,000

Jayson Werth

RF

42.8

$17,120,000

$ 2,000,000

$15,120,000

Average

33.3

$ 13,335,000

$ 6,325,000

$ 7,010,000

The Phillies got more than twice as much value out of their starting eight position players as they paid for them. On average, the Phillies got $7 million of value, which is nearly 2 Wins Above Replacement in the free agent market. Unsurprisingly, Jayson Werth was the best value among position players, providing the Phillies over $15 million in value, nearly eight times what they paid him. His price tag will go up in 2010 to $7 million and definitely more after the season when he is eligible to become a free agent.

Moving on to the bench…

Player

Position

VORP

DVORP

Salary

Actual Value

Andy Tracy

BN 1B

1.7

$680,000

$ 400,000

$280,000

Miguel Cairo

BN 2B

0.5

$200,000

$ 500,000

-$300,000

Greg Dobbs

BN 3B

-0.8

-$320,000

$ 1,150,000

-$1,470,000

Chris Coste

BN C

2.3

$920,000

$ 460,000

$460,000

Paul Hoover

BN C

1.8

$720,000

$ 400,000

$320,000

Lou Marson

BN C

-0.1

-$40,000

$ 400,000

-$440,000

Paul Bako

BN C

-1.7

-$680,000

$ 725,000

-$1,405,000

Ben Francisco

BN LF

3.4

$1,360,000

$ 421,400

$938,600

John Mayberry

BN LF

-0.2

-$80,000

$ 400,000

-$480,000

Matt Stairs

BN RF

1.3

$520,000

$ 1,625,000

-$1,105,000

Eric Bruntlett

BN SS

-9.3

-$3,720,000

$ 800,000

-$4,520,000

Average

-0.1

-$40,000

$661,945

-$701,945

*Note: Players are listed at the position at which they played the most defensively.

The Phillies bench last year was pretty bad and now you see why. The Phillies had four bench players cost them over $1 million, including Eric Bruntlett who cost them over $4.5 million. The good news is that the bench players were paid relatively little so their poor performances were barely felt. Fortunately, most of the offenders are gone, including Coste, Cairo, Marson, Stairs, Bako, and Bruntlett.

Player

Position

VORP

DVORP

Salary

Actual Value

J.A. Happ

SP

46.7

$18,680,000

$ 405,000

$18,275,000

Joe Blanton

SP

30.8

$12,320,000

$ 5,475,000

$6,845,000

Cole Hamels

SP

24.4

$9,760,000

$ 4,350,000

$5,410,000

Cliff Lee*

SP

14.1

$5,640,000

$ 233,334

$5,406,666

Pedro Martinez

SP

9.6

$3,840,000

$ 1,000,000

$2,840,000

Steven Register

SP

0.2

$80,000

$ 401,000

-$321,000

Andrew Carpenter

SP

-3.5

-$1,400,000

$ 400,000

-$1,800,000

Antonio Bastardo

SP

-4.1

-$1,640,000

$ 400,000

-$2,040,000

Rodrigo Lopez

SP

-5.4

-$2,160,000

$ 650,000

-$2,810,000

Jamie Moyer

SP

8.7

$3,480,000

$ 6,500,000

-$3,020,000

Brett Myers

SP

5.7

$2,280,000

$ 12,083,333

-$9,803,333

Average

11.6

$4,625,455

$2,899,788

$1,725,667

*Note: Cliff Lee’s salary is prorated for his time spent in Cleveland and Philadelphia.

The Phillies starting pitchers provided less than $2 million in value on average but it had more to do with heavy contracts than with actual poor performances. Only three pitchers compiled a negative VORP and they pitched a combined 59 and one-third innings, about 4% of the total innings pitched by members of the Phillies staff.

Brett Myers and Jamie Moyer were paid a combined $18.6 million last year, but combined for a DVORP of $5.76. That meant the Phillies got about $13 million less in value than they invested. On the other hand, J.A. Happ was the big winner for the Phillies, earning the Major League minimum but providing over $18 million in value. As you have no doubt heard by now, you should not expect Happ to repeat this performance no matter what the pinheads at Bleacher Report tell you.

Finally, let’s take a look at the bullpen.

Player

Position

VORP

DVORP

Salary

Actual Value

Ryan Madson

RP

17.7

$7,080,000

$ 2,000,000

$5,080,000

Scott Eyre

RP

12.1

$4,840,000

$ 2,000,000

$2,840,000

Tyler Walker

RP

9.3

$3,720,000

$ 750,000

$2,970,000

Clay Condrey

RP

8.3

$3,320,000

$ 650,000

$2,670,000

Chan Ho Park

RP

7.8

$3,120,000

$ 2,500,000

$620,000

Kyle Kendrick

RP

5.0

$2,000,000

$ 475,000

$1,525,000

J.C. Romero

RP

4.0

$1,600,000

$ 4,250,000

-$2,650,000

Chad Durbin

RP

3.9

$1,560,000

$ 1,635,000

-$75,000

Sergio Escalona

RP

1.2

$480,000

$ 400,000

$80,000

Jack Taschner

RP

-0.3

-$120,000

$ 835,000

-$955,000

Brad Lidge

RP

-15.6

-$6,240,000

$ 11,500,000

-$17,740,000

Average

4.9

$1,941,818

$2,454,091

-$512,273

If you’re anything like me, your eyes darted right to that -$17,740,000 belonging to Brad Lidge. His nightmare of a 2009 season cost the Phillies nearly $18 million. Just for fun, I removed Lidge from the equation and the average actual value of the Phillies bullpen goes from negative $500,000 to positive $1.2 million, a net gain of $1.7 million. Excluding Lidge, the bullpen was actually slightly above-average.

Know any Ryan Madson skeptics? Show them this table. Madson has been the unsung hero of the bullpen over the past three seasons. He is a free agent after the 2011 season, which is when Lidge can become a free agent as well if the Phillies decide against his $12.5 million club option. Is Madson the closer of the future? I would not be surprised to see the Phillies aggressively try to retain Madson if he continues to keep up the outstanding work.

Additionally, the above table shows just how overrated relief pitchers can be. The top three highest-paid relievers last year (Lidge, Romero, Park) cost the Phillies a combined $20 million and provided -3.5 VORP. Ed Wade, take heed.

All told, the 2009 Phillies spent under $117 million but got $178.5 million in value, a most excellent figure.